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ScorecardSri Lanka overcame a spirited display by Pakistan in the field to clinch a low-scoring affair in Bogra. Having bowled economically and clinically to dismiss Pakistan for a poor total, Sri Lanka overhauled the target for the loss of seven wickets.Shashikala Siriwardene’s decision to field in Sri Lanka’s first match of the series was justified. The first three bowlers used were extremely frugal and and Pakistan never recovered once the new-ball pair of Chamani Seneviratna and Sripali Weerakkody struck. Weerakkody, a righ-arm medium-pacer, bowled Nain Abidi for 7 in the fourth over before Seneviratna struck thrice to reduce Pakistan to 26 for 5 in the 13th over. Weerakkody’s spell read 6-2-5-1 and first-change Udeshika Prabodhani, in her second match, returned figures of 5-2-14-0.Four of the next five bowlers turned to produced a wicket each and Pakistan were bundled out for 103 in 41.5 overs. Armaan Khan, the wicketkeeper, produced the highest score of the innings, a 51-ball 25 from No. 8.Pakistan put in a tidy display with the ball in defence of that poor effort. Asmavia Iqbal made an early impact with the new ball, dismissing Chamari Polgampola for 2, but it was the efforts of offspinner Javeria Khan and left-arm pacer Almas Akram that really threatened to win Pakistan their second match in a row.Akram snapped a 31-run partnership for the second wicket and took wickets in three successive overs. Javeria, who yesterday took a career-best 3 for 20 to help her team skittle Bangladesh for 109, was again successful with three wickets.Suwini de Alwis (17 from 41 balls) and Eshani Kaushalya (16 not out from 19) helped Sri Lanka over the finish line in the 31st over.

Narsingh Deonarine’s career-best 198 kept Guyana firmly on track for victory over Combined Campuses & Colleges (CCC) in Georgetown. Deonarine and Assad Fudadin put on 172 for the sixth wicket and helped the home side to 497 for 7, a lead of 243 on day three. CCC, in their second innings, finished the day on 67 for 1.Deonarine and Fudadin dominated the morning session. Deonarine, who has not represented West Indies in 15 months, moved past the 150 and 700 runs for the season in 510 minutes off 287 balls with 16 fours and one six. He was out two short of a maiden double-century when struck on the pad by offspinner Ryan Austin, though he didn’t look pleased with the umpire’s verdict. Deonarine’s 198 spanned 360 deliveries and helped Guyana past their previous season’s best total of 402 against Trinidad and Tobago.Fudadin, a former West Indies Under-19 batsman, carried on after Deonarine departed at 415 for 6. He passed his half-century before tea but failed to get to three figures, edging Boris Hutchinson behind for 93. Gajanand Singh hit an unbeaten 43 before the innings was declared. CCC faced 20 overs before bad light stopped play, and remain behind by 176.The Windward Islands’ offspinner Shane Shillingford took six wickets to keep Barbados to 306 after a middle-order wobble overshadowed Kirk Edwards’ maiden first-class century at the Kensington Oval. Shillingford’s season-best performance left Barbadosstruggling to avoid defeat, and Windwards needing another 135 to win with nine wickets in hand. Should Windwards win – the opener Johnson Charles and nightwatchman Camilus Alexander batted positively before stumps – it will snap a three-game unbeaten run by Barbados.Facing a deficit of 111, Barbados added 86 runs during the morning session for the loss of the captain Jason Haynes, who was bowled Darren Sammy for 55. From 183 for 2 at lunch, Barbados were carried on by Edwards, who raised his first century after Kevin Stoute was run out for 37. Edwards nudged Shillingford to deep square leg to raise the landmark in 315minutes off 261 balls, but a double-strike brought Windwards back. Shillingford, 26, had Dwayne Smith caught at deep backward square for 24 and dismissed Edwards for 107. He then picked up Jason Parris, Kemar and Patrick Browne as Barbados slumped from 272 for 5 to 289 for 8. Shillingford finished with 6 for 57 off 35.4 overs with eight maidens.In the nine overs before stumps, the Windwards lost Keddy Lesporis for 2, edging Tino Best, but sped past 50 off just 52 balls with Charles playing some lusty blows. Charles, 20, hit Roach for four and six in successive deliveries and smacked Best for another six over mid-on.Trinidad & Tobago made a confident start to a chase of 370 against Jamaica at the Alpart Sports Club. Donovan Pagon and Wavell Hinds had hit half-centuries to help set T&T a stiff target, but the prolific Adrian Barath and makeshift opener Imran Khan responded well.T&T had threatened to take control of the morning session. They reduced Jamaica from an overnight 54 for 3 to 92 for 4, removing the nightwatchman Andrew Richardson for 17, but Pagon and Dave Bernard (43) added 94 for the fifth wicket. Bernard was aggressive and hit three fours and a six in his 55-ball effort and Pagon, who played two Tests for West Indies four years ago, hit 68 off 175 balls. Once Pagon fell to Khan’s legspin, Hinds made 59 and added 52 with Bernand to lift Jamaica to 285. The offspinner Amit Jaggernauth (5 for 43) quickly ran through the lower order to accelerate the end of the innings.Then Barath and Khan, batting on 34 and 32 respectively, gave T&T a good start.

Glenn Turner, New Zealand’s chairman of selectors, has acknowledged that the Indians have become better tourists but still lack the consistency expected of great teams when playing away from home. Turner was speaking after the Napier Test which India saved after being asked to follow on. It was an anti-climax from the first Test in Hamilton , which the tourists won handsomely by ten wickets.”The team lacked consistency,” Turner told . “They have done well to save the Test but good teams would have done better than that. Most teams are more consistent than India. India, when they are running hot, they are really hot. We have also seen they have their moments in other ways as well.”In the last eight years, India have managed to win at least one Test in all ten Test-playing nations, and the Hamilton victory was their first in New Zealand in 33 years. Turner, the country’s former captain, attributed their success to the emergence of quality fast bowlers who have helped their batsmen improve their technique when playing abroad.”No Indian team ever had such a quality pace attack as the present one,” Turner said. “Your batsmen are not only much more experienced but also are better served at home because of good fast bowling which helps them abroad.”However, he didn’t feel the same about the slow-bowling talent. “Spin wise I don’t see the ability of the past spinners in [MS] Dhoni’s team,” he said. “I’ve noticed that Harbhajan Singh has not got his doosra going. He is bowling topspinners but his doosra doesn’t seem to be working. The Bedis, Prasannas and Chandrasekhars have vanished from the Indian squad.”Turner also found faults in the structure of the Indian batting line-up, particularly at the top of the order. “The classical openers are not really there. When you look at the Indian side, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid are more like openers. But they really don’t open. That makes for a contradiction. So the days of seeing the new ball off is no longer an opener’s job. The current Indian opening pair makes for an exciting viewing but the strategy is fraught with a lot of dangers. The consistency is lacking.”Turner, however, still tagged India as favourites for the deciding Test in Wellington. “We’ve struggled to score more than 300 in an innings,” he said. “At Napier we scored more than 600 but I would say we can do that again if we had scored big runs in regular intervals. I see India start as favourites but you never know how the Test will pan out, because the weather in Wellington will play a crucial role.”

Mitchell Johnson’s rapid batting development could lead to him being used in a floating role by Australia in the two Twenty20 matches against South Africa from Friday. Johnson starred with bat and ball during the Test series, taking 16 wickets and scoring 255 runs at 85.00, and Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke are keen to employ his new talents.Ponting has joked about using Johnson as an opener, but is considering him for some middle-order duties. “We’ve known for a long time Mitch is more than capable of taking any bowler down at any time,” Ponting told AAP. “He’s someone who could definitely float up and down the order for us.”Ponting said having left- and right-handed combinations was important in Twenty20 games. “It just gives the bowlers no opportunity to settle in and puts extra pressure on their variations and things,” he said. “That’s where [Johnson] going up and down the order could probably work most effectively.”Johnson scored 96 in the opening Test of Australia’s 2-1 series win and finished the campaign with 123 not out. “I’m pretty sure he won’t be opening the batting on Friday night,” Clarke, the vice-captain, said. “If he is it means I mightn’t have a spot.”

Richard Hadlee, the former New Zealand allrounder, has signed up with the American Premier League (APL) as an executive consultant.The APL, as exclusively revealed by Cricinfo, is a six-team Twenty20 tournament that is to be held in October on a converted baseball field in Staten Island, New York City. Hadlee has been contracted for four events to run until 2011.”As an ambassador and executive consultant of the APL, I am delighted to be involved with this event,” Hadlee said. “The APL… brings a different format of the game to the USA – namely Twenty20 – with top-class players from around the world participating. This should be the best possible way in which to sell cricket to America’s sport-loving people.”The tournament is promoted by Jay Mir, the president and CEO of American Sports And Entertainment Group Inc, who wants to raise six sides using the IPL’s model of franchises and auctions. Several Pakistan players have been linked with the league, including former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, fast bowler Mohammad Asif, and batsmen Imran Nazir and Imran Farhat who are currently with the ICL.The APL is yet to receive a stamp of approval from the ICC, who have advised their Member countries not to allow players to participate in the event.Hadlee hoped the APL gets official sanction soon and said the league was keen to work with the USACA. “It would be shrewd if the USACA allowed the APL to help champion their cause and further cricket’s appeal there [in the USA].”

The PCB has withdrawn Shoaib Akhtar from the 15-man squad for next month’s World Twenty20, saying – in an unusually revealing statement – that he had been diagnosed with genital viral warts. Rao Iftikhar Anjum’s name has been sent to the ICC’s technical committee by the PCB as a replacement.Shoaib’s participation had been in doubt after Intikhab Alam, Pakistan’s coach, said yesterday he hadn’t recovered sufficiently from a skin infection to play the three practice games the Pakistan squad is playing in Lahore.”Shoaib Akhtar has been withdrawn from the World Twenty20 squad and Rao’s name has been sent to the ICC as a replacement,” a board spokesman said on Thursday.The PCB’s unusually graphic press release said that a three-member medical panel appointed by the PCB had found that Shoaib was suffering from “genital viral warts and electrofulgration [a surgical procedure] was done on May 12, 2009.”The panel added that “his wound though healing needs further care and treatment for another minimum ten days for the purpose of healing and to achieve skin cover. The Medical Board further recommended his re-assessment after 10 days.”In accordance with the above program his re-assessment will be carried out on 1st week of June, 2009.In view of the above, PCB has requested ICC Technical Committee for the replacement.”The condition had initially ruled Shoaib out of the training camp the team attended in Bhurban, a mountainous hill resort near Islamabad. At the time, Shoaib expressed confidence that he would recover in time.Shoaib has not trained since coming back from the series against Australia in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Questions were asked of his fitness levels during the five-ODI and one Twenty20 series; he failed to fulfill his quota of ten overs in any of the four ODIs he played and bowled only two overs in the Twenty20.The latest episode is yet another blow to an injury and scandal ravaged career that has seen Shoaib play only 46 Tests out of the 96 Pakistan have played and 144 out of the 305 ODIs Pakistan have played since his debut in 1997-98. Shoaib missed the last World Twenty20 in South Africa when he was sent home after hitting teammate Mohammad Asif in a dressing room altercation.

Scorecard
Paul Collingwood was in the runs on a quiet final day at Edgbaston•Getty Images

Ravi Bopara racked up his fourth first-class hundred in consecutive matches while Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior chipped in with useful half-centuries, as England completed their Ashes preparations with a quietly dominant final day against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. After rain delayed the start until 2.15 pm, England batted on for just over an hour and then whittled away three wickets in 12 overs before agreeing to a finish at the earliest possible time of 5.00 pm.It was an unsatisfactory end to a contest that was as far removed as possible from the dogfight taking place down the road at Worcester, and quite understandably there was a chorus of boos from the smattering of spectators who hung around to watch the action. But this match hadn’t had a properly competitive edge since the first day, and the prospect of putting the feet up and watching Andy Murray’s semi-final tussle at Wimbledon was clearly more alluring to England’s cricketers. Relaxation, after all, will be vital to their performance in the coming days.”Everyone is pretty relaxed and everyone is playing well,” Bopara said. “The way our bowlers played here gives them confidence, and gives the batters confidence as well. We coped well on this sort of deck and we are very relaxed. Everyone seems chilled but working really hard. Everyone has been in the nets and in the gym getting ready in every possible way, whether it is strength, fitness or technique, so we are ready for Wednesday.”Bopara didn’t give any impression of mounting nerves whatsoever. He resumed unbeaten on 88, and duly went to his hundred from 153 balls with his first lofted shot of the match, a cover-driven six into the Tom Dollery Stand. He retired his innings at the end of the same Boyd Rankin over, whereupon Collingwood and Matt Prior took the team along to an imposing 319 for 3 at tea, after which Andrew Strauss declared to give his fast bowlers one final gallop before Cardiff.Chasing a nominal 508, Warwickshire lost their captain, Ian Westwood, for 5 to a good length lifter from Stuart Broad that was edged to the keeper, and when Jim Troughton was crassly run out in the same over for a second-ball duck, there was the brief suspicion that England might push for a quick victory. That prospect became all the more likely when Andrew Flintoff induced an edge to Andrew Strauss at first slip to remove Ateeq Javid for 3. But then, out of the blue, quite literally for the sky was totally clear, the teams decided to shake hands, and that was emphatically that.”It has been a good little run-in to the first Test,” Bopara said. “The boys got a hit and the bowlers bowled well, and looked on fire with the ball. We’re happy all round. The standard wasn’t as high as next week, but there’s nothing better for a cricketer than spending time out in the middle. As a batsman you can work five days a week for five hours in the nets, and it is not the same as going out in the middle.”Perhaps the most meaningful preparation for England’s cricketers came from watching the TV in the dressing-room, where Steve Harmison’s rattling of the Australian batsmen, and Brett Lee’s impressive spell of reverse-swing, were being beamed in live from Worcester.”Lee bowled really well,” said Bopara. “He got it swinging both ways, and that is a lethal combination if you get it right. Hopefully it will not happen at Cardiff, but if it reverses for them then it will reverse for us. But there are not many ways you can work on reverse swing as a batter. You have to let your natural instinct take over. If you are an international batter, then you should be good enough to cope with it.”Bopara has at least had his recent tussles with Fidel Edwards to prepare him for Australia’s extreme pace, while his own memories of Cardiff are pleasant, having scored a century for Essex – against Simon Jones among other bowlers – on a previous visit in 2006.”I enjoy playing there,” he said. “It is a decent deck which turns as well, which is helpful. I scored a hundred three years ago, when Jones was reversing it towards the end of the day. He bowled with good pace, and when it started reversing it did seem a lot quicker.”

Australian offspinners are unlikely to get much local help in learning the doosra after several of the nation’s leading spin coaches agreed to banish the delivery. A group including Shane Warne, Terry Jenner and Ashley Mallett decided the doosra should not be taught in Australia.That conclusion came from last month’s spin summit, when Warne, Jenner, Mallett, Stuart MacGill, Gavin Robertson, Jim Higgs and Peter Philpott gathered at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. The men had doubts over the legality of the doosra, despite the ICC clearing several bowlers to deliver the ball at international level.”There was unanimous agreement that the off-spinner’s ‘other-one’, the doosra, should not be coached in Australia,” Mallett wrote in the . “I have never seen anyone actually bowl the doosra.”It has to be a chuck. Until such time as the ICC declares that all manner of chucking is legal in the game of cricket I refuse to coach the doosra. All at the spin summit agreed.”Australia’s No. 1 spinner Nathan Hauritz has been working on the doosra for a couple of years without perfecting it, while Jason Krejza and Dan Cullen have also attempted to develop the delivery. However, the spin coaches were keen to encourage Australia’s young spinners to bowl aggressively, searching for wickets, rather than becoming too defensive.The need to encourage young spinners at state level was also an issue and Warne suggested extending Sheffield Shield matches to five days to let slow bowlers learn how to dismiss teams on wearing pitches. The coaches hoped that state selectors and captains would employ specialist spinners more often, especially at a time when there were significant opportunities at Test and one-day level.”Too often state teams are playing a batsman who bowls spin a bit in preference to a specialist spinner,” Mallett wrote. “Even at Test level we’ve seen batsmen such as Michael Clarke bowling at important times. That, in itself, tells us that spin bowling at the top level has fallen dramatically.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outTino Best got rid of Tamim Iqbal and Mohammad Ashraful with similar deliveries•DigicelCricket.com/Brooks LaTouche Photography

It was a dreamy day for the second-string West Indies team. Make no mistake, they are still just a makeshift attack but Bangladesh played poor cricket to be bowled out for 238. It could have been worse, as they were struggling at 172 for 8, but Mashrafe Mortaza and Shahadat Hossain swung their bat bravely post-tea – after rain robbed much of the second session’s play – to push Bangladesh towards respectability. They then dealt West Indies an early blow, Shakib Al Hasan trapping Dale Richards, who celebrated his Test debut with a stunning pulled six to get off the mark, plumb in front to ensure Bangladesh ended the day on a high.In that phase of relative recovery led by Mortaza and Shahadat and later during Shakib’s two-over spell, there was turn and bounce on offer to the spinners which would have interested Bangladesh immensely. It would have offered them hope that they could still come back in the game after the meek capitulation by their top-order batsmen against a spirited West Indies team.West Indies fans wouldn’t have expected magic balls from a weakened attack and there weren’t any today. However, what they would have hoped for is discipline, commitment, and hunger from the group of men who had been given this unexpected honour to play Test cricket. And they didn’t disappoint today. It was a professional, disciplined performance from the bowlers who repeatedly kept hitting the right line and length on a slow wicket. Nearly everyone produced their top game.Take Tino Best for example. He has, in the past, been guilty of trying to bowl faster than what he was capable of and being erratic as a result. Today, he repeatedly hit the short-of-length in the off-stump channel and slipped in the occasional bouncer. He struck the early blow, luring Tamim Iqbal into a fatal drive with a full delivery outside off in his first over of the day. He returned later to repeat the delivery against Mohammad Ashraful, who also edged it behind. His celebrations after taking a wicket – the wild run and pumping of the fist – remained as colourful as ever.While Best is a known name in international circuit, what would have really warmed the hearts of Caribbean fans is the emergence of the 21-year old fast bowler Kemar Roach. There was enough on show today to make one believe that Roach won’t need a strike by the main players to play for West Indies in the near future. It was said that early in his career he used to chiefly dart his deliveries into the right-handers but in the recent past, he has worked hard to get the one that straightens and even curve away.There were two Roach moments that stood out today. The first was a lovely rueful smile as he stood in the middle of the pitch after beating the bat for the nth time without any luck. The second, an act of pride, arrived when lady luck eventually smiled on him; he kissed the Caribbean emblem on his shirt after taking every wicket.His day’s work had started with a series of heartbreaks as he repeatedly harassed Raqibul Hasan outside the off stump without any luck. Time and again, Raqibul drove and jabbed his bat inside the line of the deliveries that straightened outside the off stump. Roach got the edge on one occasion but the ball flew straight between first and second slip. Ironically, Roach himself gave a reprieve to Raqibul when he dropped a sitter at backward square leg off the bowling of Darren Sammy. Roach was impressive against the right-hand batsmen but, against the left-handers, he kept pushing the deliveries a touch wide across the body. In the second session, he returned to trouble Mahmudullah with a mixture of outswingers and yorkers before inducing an edge to backward point. And in the final session, he took out Mashrafe Mortaza with a lovely leg cutter.Like Roach and Best, every bowler did his job. Sammy is your essential bits-and-pieces player who looks unthreatening with ball or bat in hand. But no can accuse him of over-extending himself and being unaware of his limitations. Today, again, he kept it simple, honing in and around the off stump with gentle medium pace. He was a touch lucky to get the wicket of Imrul Kayes, who looked the best of Bangladesh top-order batsmen. Kayes shouldered arms to a length delivery that straightened a touch on the off stump line and was struck on the pad. He was given out lbw though the ball appeared to be missing off.Dave Bernard’s art is very similar to that of Sammy: steady supply of well-directed medium pace bowling. After ending Raqibul’s misery with a full delivery that was squeezed straight to gully, he troubled the left-handed Junaid Siddique with his length deliveries that angled away outside off stump. In between, he hurled a short-pitched delivery that was swatted so weakly to cover that he was encouraged to try another one. That did the trick as Siddique pulled weakly straight to short midwicket.The bowling, though disciplined, didn’t deserve six wickets in the morning’s play but the Bangladesh batsmen seemed to be in a zombie mode, self-destructing systematically and regularly. Only two batsmen, Kayes and Shakib Al Hasan, showed the right approach and the skill but, unfortunately for Bangladesh, both fell to wrong umpiring decisions. Shakib, who looked assured in his brief stay, tried to sway away from a short delivery from Roach and the ball bounded off his forearm straight to gully.However, the rest of the main batsmen weren’t up to the mark and would have only added more fuel to the critics of Bangladesh. Luckily for them, Mortaza and Shahadat, the bowlers, saved them from total embarrassment.

ScorecardIan Bell: 126 in front of not one, but all four England selectors, as well as Andrew Strauss•PA Photos

Ian Bell’s demeanour throughout his second innings here had been that of a man determined not to waste an opportunity and if he was hoping to make the right impression on England’s selectors he could not have chosen a better moment.While Bell, unbeaten on 92 overnight after revealing enormous depths of patience late on Thursday evening, advanced quickly to his 26th hundred on the final morning, the selection panel deliberating on the line-up for The Oval had convened a matter of yards away, in a room in the Radcliffe Road stand overlooking the field.Bell steered the first ball of the day past the slip cordon for four as Ryan Sidebottom opened proceedings at the pavilion end and moved into three figures 10 minutes later, driving Charlie Shreck roughly in the direction of the meeting room at long off.With a Test place to be clinched, having a selector present is a boon to any batsman in form but in this instance Bell had not merely one but all four — Geoff Miller, James Whitaker, Ashley Giles and Andy Flower — in attendance, as well as the England captain, Andrew Strauss. It may have been a unique occurrence.The panel dispersed after a marathon five-hour session, although there had been more to ponder upon than with whom to take on the Australians in the decisive fifth Test. Names were also to be decided for the one-day series and the Twenty20 matches.Bell’s innings lasted one hour longer, a six-hour epic encompassing 262 deliveries that ended on 126 when Andre Adams, a somewhat underrated seamer in Nottinghamshire’s high quality bowling armoury, hurried one through to trap him leg-before.Bell, who will learn within the coming hours whether his double failure at Headingley has been forgiven, looked less that thrilled, but it was probably more to do with being late on the shot than the authenticity of umpire Richard Kettleborough’s verdict. In any case, after standing at the other end as teammate Jonathan Trott, who will also be waiting for a phone call, beat him to a hundred on Thursday, it had been a good response.With nightwatchman Naqaash Tahir already gone, caught behind after an hour-long effort, Warwickshire were 355 for 5 with Bell’s departure. And when Jim Troughton, struggling for form, became a fourth victim for Adams – who was finding movement off the pitch – they were in danger of subsiding, at 370-6 and only 201 in front, to let Nottinghamshire back in with a scent of victory.But a 95-run partnership between Rikki Clarke and Tim Ambrose saw off that threat, Ambrose doing a sterling job in the defensive role as Clarke, ultimately, allowed himself licence to swing the bat — profitably, too, with a couple of big pulled sixes off Samit Patel’s spin and another fired over midwicket off Shreck.Sidebottom, meanwhile, was cutting an increasingly frustrated figure, repeatedly returning to bowl excellent spells but having no luck at all, beautifully though he bowled at times.Shreck ultimately uprooted Clarke’s middle stump, prompting a tea-time declaration at 470-7 that left Nottinghamshire, in theory, to score 302 to win from a minimum 42 overs.It was never a target they seriously chased, particularly after on-loan opener Scott Newman had been trapped on the crease by Boyd Rankin without scoring. Handshakes were exchanged with Nottinghamshire finishing on 71 for 1 after 25 overs.